Alchemy Code Lab

The Alchemy Community is really positive and supportive. If you are wondering if tech is for you, let me say: Yes. it is. Alchemy will give you the confidence and skills to believe it is too. They will not let you fall behind and my TA's were wonderful in guiding me and helping me grow. I've met some of my greatest friends here and I am honestly still meeting wonderful people even after graduating. Alchemy is worth taking the chance on. The professors are passionate about what they teach and about their student's success. The Career Services are kind and encouraging people who offer amazing advices and resume/cover letter help. Alchemy never lets you feel like you are on this journey alone.
Mar 22nd, 2022

This program was good for about the first 2/3 weeks. Nothing ever happens to students who make false claims, disrupt the learning environment multiple times during lectures, and obviously copy and paste from alum github repos. Then came foundations 2 where multiple people where not at the required 90% to continue the course and they were still strung along in the program. These people have still to this day not grasped the core concepts of coding. They are completely a predatory school. I personally had some trouble in my personal life and they were willing to help work around my issues. But they only help when it is coinvent and/or benefits them.
Sep 20th, 2021

How are the children supposed to learn if they cant even fit inside the building? Red flags abound from the first attempts at communication with staff. Probably not worth $24,000.
Feb 9th, 2021

This was a very positive move for myself and my future. I'd first heard of Alchemy through a friend who went through the program in 2016. During the early pandemic I lost my job and decided it was time to take my future career more into my hands. I saw coding as an increasingly in demand field and with pay that would lead to financial security for myself and my family. I looked at programs around the Portland area and surveyed friends in the tech world to see what they knew about local code school options. One friend told me not even to bother with a boot camp and to just teach myself. When I mentioned I was considering Alchemy they immediately stopped and said, well I have actually only ever heard good things about that program. Between that and my friend who had gone through the program previously my mind was made up. My informational interview with Megan was purely a formality (but I will admit it made me even more eager to start ASAP). Megan was very honest about time commitments, academic rigor, and job search following the program. If I wanted to make this transition, it was not going to be easy or brief. That was exactly what I wanted to hear. 6 months of coding and a portfolio with at least 4 projects to show to prospective employers gave me full confidence in the program. The program itself lived up to the hype. I won't lie and tell you it was always fun, or that I even felt like I was progressing each day. However, each week I felt like I was a stronger coder, reader of code, and critical thinker than the week before. Alchemy blended solo work and group work to create a nice measure of personal progress and learning to code and manage group dynamics. They also incorporated career services assignments throughout the course. This gave students dedicated time to work on things like resumes and researching both technical and behavioral interview questions. It also provided time to work with colleagues on our answers to those interview questions. My personal favorite during all of this was 1 on 1 meetings with the career service staff to tighten up my resume, craft my narrative of becoming a software developer, and gain confidence in talking professionally about my skills. Overall, I would highly recommend the program to those ready to make the leap. It has given me the tools to succeed in the tech world and enhance my ability to contribute to companies and provide me and my family financial security going forward.
Jan 9th, 2022

Alchemy is a fast paced learning environment but definitely will give you the skills you need to break into tech. Of course you will need to put in the work, stick to coding and market yourself, but Alchemy does a great job at providing you with a network and support system in which you can acquire professional connections that can possibly expand into getting that job, it is all on how you decide to use those resources. If you are coming in with zero coding knowledge it could be very rough at first since there is so much to learn but eventually you start getting more comfortable with the basics and the information starts to sink in. A great thing about Alchemy is that they ensure that the people they have attending their school are diverse, from all sorts of backgrounds and open to differences, they provide a healthy social environment which makes it easier for it to be a more collaborative, supportive and judgement free zone. I attended when it was in person so I cannot speak on how the distance learning would be, but I definitely recommend the program, they teach what is being used the most in the industry for web development and what you more likely will end up using once you get your first tech job, all I learned from Alchemy is what I use every day at work. The instructors are very knowledgeable and the team projects assigned are a great way to get prepared on how collaborating in a professional setting will be.
Feb 7th, 2021